Incorrect

ARTICLES ABOUT INCORRECT BY DATE - PAGE 4

By David Zurawik and David Zurawik,SUN TELEVISION CRITIC | September 9, 2003

The very first image viewers of the new NBC sitcom Whoopi will see tonight is that of Mavis Rae (Whoopi Goldberg) lighting a cigarette and taking a drag as she stands behind the front desk of the small Manhattan Hotel she owns. A guest standing nearby picks up a no-smoking sign and says, "Excuse me." "Oh, you're right, sir. I'm sorry. Here, I'll just put it out," she says meekly, moving her hand toward an ash tray. But as soon as the guest turns his back and starts to walk away, she puts the cigarette back in her mouth.

A top official with the Department of Juvenile Justice has resigned after disclosures that he twice understated the number of assaults against teens at Maryland's juvenile jails, the agency announced yesterday. Henry R. Lesansky is on leave until Feb. 18, when his resignation will take effect, according to an agency spokesman. Lesansky had been responsible for overseeing investigations of conditions at the jails, including reports of guards assaulting teens. His departure comes after a series of embarrassments for the department and its secretary, Bishop L. Robinson.

Deputy Police Commissioner Barry W. Powell denied yesterday that he helped a colleague carry out an ill-fated, and possibly improper, sting to catch a lieutenant in a lie about driving a police vehicle home to Westminster. The Baltimore Police Department's second-highest-ranking officer called accusations about his alleged involvement in the unsanctioned probe "absolutely incorrect." But police officials said yesterday that Powell and Col. James L. Hawkins Jr. remain the subjects of an internal investigation that is examining their role in the probe and whether their conduct was proper.

A Baltimore man who suffered a seizure while driving pleaded guilty yesterday to negligent manslaughter in a fatal crash on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway - an accident blamed on his incorrect use of medication. Willie James Jenkins, 60, wept in Anne Arundel Circuit Court as he apologized for the accident that he barely remembers. The crash occurred June 21, 1999. "The family over here, I'm sorry," Jenkins cried, holding his left hand at his head. Seated in the courtroom were relatives of the victim, Robert W. Snyder Jr., 39, of Bear, Del., who also were weeping.

Attorneys for two Baltimore County women convicted in the starvation death of 9-year-old Rita Fisher told the state's highest court yesterday that their clients never intended to kill the girl and should not have been found guilty of second-degree felony murder. In a second set of oral arguments before the Maryland Court of Appeals, lawyers for Mary E. Utley, the girl's mother, and Rose Mary Fisher, the girl's adult sister, also argued the second-degree murder conviction was inappropriate because child abuse is not "inherently dangerous" to life, and the crime doesn't qualify as a felony.

One by one, some of the key players in Baltimore's journey toward a new era of pro sports took the oath in the Orioles' "parity" case. Baseball executives such as Larry Lucchino and one-time stadium point man Herb Belgrad touched on the milestones in the city's sports renaissance. Even the late Edward Bennett Williams appeared, on videotape. The Washingtonian who owned the baseball team through much of the 1980s was shown persuading lawmakers to approve twin stadiums for downtown Baltimore.

Pro-Israel protesters picketed outside The Sun building on Calvert Street yesterday over an incorrect caption published Sunday beneath a photograph of an Israeli policeman during recent violence in Jerusalem. The group of about 75 -- organized by the host of a local Jewish radio show -- was also angry about recent Sun editorials on unrest in the Middle East, which they assert are erroneous. They waved Israeli flags during the protest and condemned The Sun for "journalistic incompetence."

Anne Arundel officials gave the County Council inaccurate figures about the cost of two multimillion-dollar jail construction projects as far back as 1996, according to the county auditor. Auditor Teresa Sutherland's analysis suggests that the county used decreases in the cost of building the Ordnance Road jail in Glen Burnie to obscure how costs were rising at the Jennifer Road detention center expansion near Annapolis. The cost of the Jennifer Road jail has ballooned from $17 million to $27 million, an increase of nearly 60 percent, since 1996, according to Sutherland, for a host of reasons including soil and sprinkler problems and design changes.

Her friends sometimes treat her like an evangelist with no impulse control. It's probably because she can't keep quiet when she spies a child seat improperly installed, or ill-fitting, or wrong for a child's age or size. But Brooke Edwards Greenbaum has to live with herself, too. Her friends sympathize, but they don't quite understand. She hopes they never have to. Last year, Greenbaum was a passenger in a car that crashed and left four people dead, including her father. Two people survived that accident: Greenbaum and her 15-month-old daughter Lauren, who was strapped into a child seat.

Black & Decker Corp.'s stock price fell 7.2 percent yesterday, after a Salomon Smith Barney analyst downgraded his rating on the company to "neutral" based on information the Towson-based toolmaker said is incorrect. Stephen Kim, an analyst at Smith Barney in New York, said in a research report that he is downgrading his "outperform" rating on Black & Decker's stock "due to the potential for a heightened competitive environment ... over the next year." The report said industry sources have indicated that retailers Home Depot Inc. and Lowe's Cos. Inc. have each asked Stanley Works, a Connecticut-based hand tools manufacturer, to develop a line of power tools, as well as participate in the lock sets category.